She nodded and stubbed out her cigarette. “Let’s consider that for a second. How do we know for sure he’s dying?”

“One good look at him.”

She opened her mouth as if to argue, then closed it and lowered her head to her knees for a moment. When she raised her head, she flipped the hair back off her face and leaned back in her chair. “You’re right,” she said. “Dumb idea. The guy’s definitely got one foot in the grave.”

“So,” I said. “Back to square one. What makes a guy hate anyone, but particularly his own flesh and blood, so much that he’s determined to spend his last days hunting her down?”

“Jay suggested a history of incest,” Angie said.

“Okay. Daddy loves his little girl way too much. They have a conjugal relationship, and something gets in the way.”

“Anthony Lisardo. Back to him again.”

I nodded. “So, Daddy has him whacked.”

“Not long after her mother died to boot. So Desiree goes into her depression, meets Price, who manipulates her grief and enlists her in the theft of the two million.”

I turned my head, looked at her. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would Price enlist her? I’m not saying he wouldn’t want her along for the ride for a bit, but why would he let her in on the plan?”

She tapped her thigh with her beer bottle. “You’re right. He wouldn’t.” She raised her beer and drank. “God, I’m confused.”

We sat there in silence and chewed on it as the moon bathed Tampa Bay in pearl and the fingers of rose in the purple sky faded and eventually disappeared. I went back in and got us two more beers and came back out onto the patio.

“Black is white,” I said.

“Huh?”

“You said it yourself. Black is white. Up is down on this case.”

“True. Definitely true.”

“You ever see Rashomon?”

“Sounds like a movie about a guy’s athlete’s foot.”

I looked at her from under hooded eyes.

“Sorry,” she said lightly. “No, Patrick, I never saw Rash-o-whatever.”

“Japanese film,” I said. “The whole movie shows the same event told four different times.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s a rape and murder trial. And the four people who were there tell four completely different accounts of what happened. And you watch each version and have to decide who’s telling the truth.”

“I saw a Star Trek like that once.”

“You need to watch less Star Trek,” I said.

“Hey, at least it’s easy to pronounce. Not like Rash-aweed.”

“Rashomon.” I squeezed the top of my nose between my index finger and thumb, closed my eyes. “My point, anyway.”

“Yes?”

“Is that we might be looking at this all wrong. Maybe,” I said, “we accepted too many things as truth at the beginning and were wrong.”

“Like thinking Trevor was an okay guy and not a homicidal, incestuous nutbag?”